Monday, April 24, 2017

The great spectacle of ...The Footballing Parents.





Despite being a Brit, I don't do football... 
I think it was something to do with an overbearing games teacher at school, not being very interested in sports and the huge Arsenal vs. Spurs family rivalry, that put me right off...

As a kid I tried to like it, I played a bit at school, I used to go to training for Downside, the local kids team where I grew up. I went to some matches with my Dad and Uncles at Spurs and even a couple of England matches where I met Diego Maradona  (that's me with him in the pic below.)

I just was never very good at football and was always picked last along with my mate Derek for the team, I only made the Downside team once when someone else didn't show up. My lack of playing was mainly due to the fact I could never kick the damn ball in the direction it should go. I resigned myself to not being a footballist at about age 13 and settled for watching the World Cup when it was interesting or there was nothing else on TV. I don't even follow a team, I just don't do football.

Me (left) with Diego Maradona in 1986
Now I'm a parent, football has made a surprise come back in my life through BIG, he loves the beautiful game. I'm not sure where he got it from, my wife isn't a footballist, nor any of our Swiss family. Grandad, uncles and cousins in England are all footballists so, I guess he must have picked it up in the UK family genes somewhere along the lines...

Anyway, the thought of having a "football kid" was always a bit of a fear for me, I was worried about the idea of not being able to tell my kids what to do as I didn't know the rules and had a fear of standing on a wet and windy touchline on a Sunday morning, after a few hours sleep from a concert the night before...I just couldn't see myself doing it.

The other summer, after BIG showed his absolute enthusiasm for the Football thing, I shelved my fears,  got him a goal set and put it in the garden. The idea being that BIG could happily while away time, practicing penalty shooting, free kicks and other things footbally. Unfortunately he needed someone to practice with and as Small hates football and seems to have 2 left feet (much like myself at that age) and Mrs S just doesn't, it was down to me...

Oh the pressure, I knew I would be a let down... I mean, I couldn't kick a ball in a straight line at a target when I was under 20. Now, in my 40's I was going to be an utter embarrassment to my boy. 
On a whim, I got myself some trusty "old skool" Adidas Samba and spent some time in the garden when they (and everyone else in the neighbourhood) were at school / work...and tried to learn to kick a ball...after while and the loss of numerous balls in the stream that runs through our garden,  it started to come together. I could actually get the ball in the goal from anywhere in the garden, this was a revelation for me and made the kick about with BIG, much more fun for both of us!
 Now we fast forward a bit and BIG has joined the local football team. He has relatively expensive (for the size of it) football clothing and indoor and outdoor boots. He goes to the training ground once a week on a Wednesday, they practice outdoor in the spring, summer and autumn and indoor in the winter. I drop him off and say hi to the other parents and then come home...I ask him how he got on when he comes home and ask him if he managed to score any goals and what kind of football things did they learn today. That's the very limit of my footballing knowledge, aside from when we play in the garden,  I kick footballs at him and he kicks footballs at me...it's all going OK...

Then BIG enrolles me in the Dads vs. Kids match in the training hall in February, without my knowledge I might add, My wife broke the news gently...


"You'll have to go training with BIG next week..Take your footie boots and wear some light clothes"

"Eh! Why...?"

"Because the Dads are playing the kids"

"Oh f**k, really?"

"yes, he's very excited and will be very proud that his Papa is there with him"

"Ohhhh, bugger......"

That was that, I had no excuses and the huge smile on the face of my son ensured I nervously entered the sports hall with my Adidas Samba shod feet, the very next week...


Me aged 8                                          BIG aged 8

I hadn't played a game of football for at least 30 years and now there I was,  lined up with 10 other Dads in various stages of (un) fitness about to kick off a 90 minute match against our offspring.
It was exhausting and quite a lot of fun...thankfully the dads were only allowed 5 players against the kids 11 so, we were subbed on and off the pitch as we played, I think this action from the trainer probably saved a few heart attacks!!

It came down to penalties at the end and I took to the pitch in front of my son, his team mates and all the other Dads, to take the first penalty shot...
I was utterly terrified, playing drums in front of thousands of people is a breeze compared to taking a penalty in a school sports hall in front of your son and his mates I tell you! 
I dug deep, composed myself and tried to think of all the garden practice I had done....then with a hasty "don't fucking miss" muttered under my breath, I struck the ball and it flew with a nice little curl, up into the top left corner of the net....

GOAL!!!

So that's what it's all about, I get it now....
We got beaten 6-5 and we looked like we had run a marathon, but it was actually great fun!
I could round up the story there but, that little match led me to look forward to taking BIG to his club tournaments when I am not away with the band...

It's this particular activity that brings me to the point of this blog instalment....




The Footballing Parents.

This is a phenomena of which I was unaware, it took me by complete surprise and a certain amount of fear, watching them at work is quite a spectator sport and I can't figure out if I go to matches to watch BIG and his team or to watch The Footballing Parents...

The Footballing Parents are not your ordinary supportive parents, taking a healthy interest in the hobbies of their offspring, not the parents who will take the kids to training after work or run a club unpaid, for fun. The ones i'm talking about are the parents who seem to want to live an unfulfilled ambition through their kids and take it deadly serious!!

The Footballing Parents (FBP as I shall call them) clearly invest a great deal of time and energy in developing their miniature Pele, Ardilies, Beckham or Messe. FBP would also appear to spend a huge amount of money on tiny, expensive boots and replica kit and training kit and bags and whatever the hell else a small footballist may require. FBP will ensure they are first at the match ground and will dutifully break out a miniature expensive match ball and help their miniature footballing creation to warm up, by shouting instructions as the small one runs around, kicks balls, jumps up and down and dashes from white line to white line. 

FBP will speak in hushed tones to the trainer when the team is prepared for the match and then as the kick off approaches FBP will bellow instructions and encouragement to the miniature footballist from the side lines. As the match is in progress FBP will shout and swear and jump up and down and scream and shout at other miniature footballists, referees, other parents and anyone else who it appears is not playing or spectating to professional footballing standards.

FBP is terrifying to watch yet, strangely addictive...There seem to be many, many footballing terms which are bellowed at the top of FBP's voice as play progresses.  If their miniature footballist should attempt to score and miss, you'd be forgiven for thinking that FBP had been personally kicked in the ankle. God forbid the miniature footballist is tackled or fouled..this sends FBP into an almost "Elmer Fudd" style rage and can sometimes see FBP walk onto the pitch and berate the officials and other parents! 

It's truly amazing and I have always seen at least one or two examples at most matches BUT this last weekend was off the scale in terms of FBP involvement...

BIG and his team were playing a county tournament with 6 teams from the local area, all playing 20 minute 5-a-side matches. 5 of the teams I had seen before at other matches and knew some of the parents and FBP by sight but, this time there was a new team, one I hadn't seen before...

The junior side from the local Premier league squad arrived in a sponsored team bus, resplendent in miniature versions of the very expensive pro kit, emblazoned with sponsor logos and tiny expensive gold NIKE boots..They looked great, like a tiny footballing army, and as you'd expect, every tiny footballing soldier had an independent squad of FBP in support... It was simultaneously truly comical, threatening and amazing to watch.. The Premier FBP were howling and jumping and berating all who stood in their way...This particular brand of FBP were making more noise than any of the other teams and parents in attendance..I have never seen anything like it!

As BIG and I shared a half time orange juice there was a "Premier FBP" next to us dishing out a major finger pointing bollocking to a tiny footballist for missing a penalty, the little man stood there in his tiny perfect kit and gold boots with tears in his eyes as his (I presume) father, told him he was disappointed and surprised by his sons poor performance..unable to hear any more I just said "Mate, take it easy, it's just a game" 

"Shut up asshole" was his reply...

BIG turns to me and says "It doesn't look like much fun in that team, Pa"

I'm glad that, through my son,  I found the fun in football again but, at the same time, I'm saddened that for some kids the Beautiful Game is not a game of fun anymore, because of their parents they are having their passion and fun turned into an obsession...

Yes I get it, football is big business, but for 6,7 and 8 year old kids it should all be about getting out, having fun and learning to win and loose. Or at the very least, it should be about letting them make up their own mind about football....NO?

Have I missed the point?

OWN GOOOAAAALLLLLLL!























Monday, April 3, 2017

I don't want to be a pushy parent, but.........












Mrs S and are are very lucky to have two little hooligans that simply love going to school. We have no trouble getting them out of the house every morning at 08:00 for them to walk, by themselves I might add, the 1 kilometre or so to the village school..

When the boys reached school age (age 6, much later here than in the UK) we were able to choose the kind of system they would follow for the first few years. We had the option of the normal "years 1 / 2 / 3" system or a new style "Basis-stufe" where the last kindergarten year, plus first 3 school years are rolled into one class.

We chose the Basis-stufe style for both boys, as the building was brand new, open plan and beautifully equipped, in addition the small class size of 20 was shared by 2 teaching staff, thats one teacher for 10 kids!! And there was the added benefit of the younger kids being inspired to learn by the older kids and in turn the older kids helping to "mentor" the little ones. We thought it provided a really wonderful, inclusive and inspiring learning environment for our boys to start their schooling. We were pleased to hear that the children would be encouraged to work toward their strengths and be helped and inspired by their classmates to tackle their weaknesses, assisted by the teaching staff.

Both boys attend the Basis-Stufe in separate classes, both classes have 20 kids and 2 teachers. Small is absolutely loving his time at school and his teachers are really fantastic and supportive, he doesn't enjoy the traditional school work as such, but is allowed to really exercise his creative mind with building things from old cardboard, painting, drawing and working as part of a team. He is extremely creative and very skilled with his hands. He has struggled wth learning his numbers and letters a bit but, with our support at home and that of his tutors, he is making steady progress and his confidence is growing all the time...most heartening!

BIG however, is struggling a bit....and it's troubling us.

Even before he started school, BIG had a huge interest in numbers, letters and books. So much so that I took it upon myself to teach him to read and count before he had finished kindergarten. I bought a stack of books from the UK on the early years math syllabus and revisited the classic Peter & Jane, Ladybird KEYWORDS reading series that I enjoyed so much as a youngster. BIG absolutely loved this stuff and would happily sit with me for several afternoons a week and learn to write and read, and to add and subtract. All in English of course, as I didn't want to do the wrong thing in German..not that my knowledge of my adopted language and the mother tongue of Mrs S and the boys is my greatest strength,  I just wanted to do my bit to encourage a young mind, hungry for knowledge.

His first year in Basis-Stufe seemed to go OK but we did notice his frustration that he wasn't getting to do what he would consider "proper school work" There was lots of playing and making stuff and learning to be part of a team but, he really wanted to be learning to do the things he had done with me at home, in school...

We were able to counter his frustrations by continuing the work we'd been doing at home, and by his second year at Basis-stufe, he started to do all the things he wanted to be doing...
Fuelled by his thirst for knowledge and doing a good job, he would happily bring home his books and fly through his homework. He knew his alphabet in German and English, learnt to pronounce all of his letters in German (Very different to English) He enjoyed reading his books from school which were at a much lower level than the level he had attained on the KEYWORDS books, but most importantly he seemed very inspired. Maths was the same, he could happily count to 100 in German and English,  and he had happily mastered addition and subtraction upto 50 in German and English, by himself...

Supporting his obvious enthusiasm and thirst for this, Mrs S and I would spend time with him in the evenings working through his homework books, helping him where required and diligently filling in all of the work he had achieved in the "report" section. Then we started noticing a problem...his tutor hadn't acknowledged ANY of the work he had done...he was sent home with notes asking us NOT to do anymore work on these books with him as he was overtaking the class and they should all be learning together, his regular homework consisted of worksheets that he could complete in minutes and slowly but surely, he started to loose enthusiasm for his much loved numbers...

His teacher even told him off in front of the class for doing too much work and he became scared to sit with us at home and do things because he thought he'd get in trouble with his teacher!

The same thing started to happen in his reading.... with the head start he had from the KEYWORDS series and his ability to work out words and sentences in German or English he was devouring the weekly class reader in a single evening...The school library wouldn't let him take out extra books beyond his class level and so we had to make up the short fall ourselves with books at home.

Not really the supportive educational experience that we had been promised for him...

After speaking with his tutors and trying to air our frustrations, it became clear that they thought WE, his parents, were to blame and that we were pushing him too hard and just wanted him to be a star student!

That really could not be further from the truth, I was no star at school, in fact I hated it...I went on to do a teaching degree and lectured in music on the University and College system, but that was in my early 30s, my schooling and academic achievement was by no means a highlight. Mrs S was the studious one, having studied languages, medicine and finally attaining her Masters but again, is no academic, she just worked hard. We are not pushy parents at all, the luxury of us both being self employed and spending lots of time with our boys has really allowed us to help them indulge in the things they love to do. We were both so pleased that they enjoyed school we wanted to help and encourage them to learn whilst they had the opportunity to do so. It hurt being labelled as a pushy parent!

As it was, we left the meeting feeling like we had done something wrong with BIG, we were given no extra support or ideas to help him with his maths schooling at home, just simply told, he needs to follow the program with the class. So in an act of defiance, I photocopied the entire book and we work on that and anything else I can find "on topic" from the internet.

He has been put on a reading program "Antolin" where each time he reads a book he can go online to answer questions about the book and earn points. This has inspired him even more and in 3 months he has amassed over 380 points (the same level as kids 3 years above him) he is reading books in German and English at home and earning his points...He can't get enough of it BUT, once again, the teacher is convinced we are doing the work for him...

The weekly school reader (which he'll do in an evening) is taken off him the next day and he then has to wait 5 days before doing the online test at school without re-reading the book...

It's like the teacher is trying to catch him, or us, out!

IT'S VERY FRUSTRATING.....

So, I don't want to be a pushy parent, but.........

I simply wish that a tutor who has only TEN,  7-8 year old students to look after, would simply show a bit of support and enthusiasm for a hungry young mind!

Is there no such thing as differentiation in the Swiss school system?
Is it really that hard to set some slightly more advanced work based on the same topic?
Is it really OK to ask a child to not do too much work, when they really want to?

Am I being a pushy parent?

I simply don't know...

I, just as we all do, only want the best for my kids and if they are inspired, I want to help them realise their potential...isn't that the true art of teaching?